Quickherald/ Quickhealherald changes..

[RangerAUT.4692]

Personally, I have learned to love the Herald since one year and my HT cm trainings as Quickherald. In the fight you had to adjust the rota a bit anyway, of course it was also spamming facets, but today my Quick uptime was really bad... 93% instead of the usual 100%... the phase transitions are also meh... also the QHealherald is no longer good in my eyes...

Or maybe not good anymore is the wrong way to put it, but it was finally a class that competed with the HFB... as you can see again, Anet doesn't like it... the idea of changing legends is good in principle... but the implementation didn't work out well. You can't spontaneously switch from Glint or Shiro to Jalis for Stability... because you always have to rotate, i.e. there's a big chance that Jalis is on CD and adjusting to the boss isn't always possible...

It just took the fun out of it for me... and I won't play Quickness anymore, because I don't like the QFB... Harbringer would be an alternative but not for my main content, raids and HT cm... the support of the healers is also gone, because you can't support them with might uptime, protection etc. anymore.

I think it's a real shame that Anet bombed the Herald like that... in my eyes the changes are very bad.... D

and the change with 1.5 quick pulses per second won't change anything...

I would really like Anet to make the Herald like it was before the update.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

I just don't understand how they thought this was a positive change when it literally just incentivizes auto attack + upkeep. It's not more flexible, it's just bad. Even with more concentration in the traitline it's still going to feel bad.

[otto.5684]

2 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

I just don't understand how they thought this was a positive change when it literally just incentivizes auto attack + upkeep. It's not more flexible, it's just bad. Even with more concentration in the traitline it's still going to feel bad.

To add, it definitely is no longer useable building into raid support. You cannot utilize it in OW or on dps builds. 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

4 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

I just don't understand how they thought this was a positive change when it literally just incentivizes auto attack + upkeep. It's not more flexible, it's just bad. Even with more concentration in the traitline it's still going to feel bad.

People keep saying that, but it really isn't true.  It takes 9 seconds to swap legends, and 9 seconds of 6 upkeep consumes 9 energy.  Per legend swap, there's 41 energy to spare for use for weapon skills and utilities.  I've had limited use with it, but so far the new quickherald plays similarly to the old alacrigade builds.  Qherald is less punishing because it doesn't rely on Charged Mists to make up for their energy costs or Invoking Torment for damage.  I use weapon skills quite liberally under all of the toggles.  

The increase in flexibility comes from permitting more legend combinations.  Previously, Glint was mandatory for quickness.  Now, it is possible to run any combination of legends.  Granted, a boon herald will probably take Glint anyway, but overworld heralds that want self-quickness won't be pidgeonholed into taking Draconic Echo with Glint.  

[Athef.6879]

3 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

People keep saying that, but it really isn't true.  It takes 9 seconds to swap legends, and 9 seconds of 6 upkeep consumes 9 energy.  Per legend swap, there's 41 energy to spare for use for weapon skills and utilities.  I've had limited use with it, but so far the new quickherald plays similarly to the old alacrigade builds.  Qherald is less punishing because it doesn't rely on Charged Mists to make up for their energy costs or Invoking Torment for damage.  I use weapon skills quite liberally under all of the toggles.  

The increase in flexibility comes from permitting more legend combinations.  Previously, Glint was mandatory for quickness.  Now, it is possible to run any combination of legends.  Granted, a boon herald will probably take Glint anyway, but overworld heralds that want self-quickness won't be pidgeonholed into taking Draconic Echo with Glint.  

Okay, well, let's take that and build on it then. I'll be considering this from the qheal herald perspective, btw, as I feel like that's the one which got actually hit pretty hard.

Jalis - You need to keep Vengeful Hammers running. You take Jalis for IR or elite, which need 30% and 40%
          energy respectively You're left with 11% or 1% = AA spam, and you don't get to use either IR or the
          elite a second time.
Glint - You need to have -6 upkeep running. From what I've seen, that'd be Facets of Nature, Darkness and
          Strength so as to keep Chaos for CC (you've also lost protection btw) and Light for heals. Facet of
          Elements does nothing all that useful, so that's a waste to have open, you're losing Burst of Strength
          from Facet of Strength and you've already by default lost so much general boon generation through
          direct nerfs; but you do have some energy left for weapon skills, enough for Renewing wave and
          Surge of the Mists ig.
Ventari - You need to keep Protective Solace running; which, in of itself, is extremely bad and downright
          undesired in some fights. Since you have to keep that utility running, you can use Natural Harmony
          exactly twice, Purifying Essence once, elite skill once. I don't need to say how huge a nerf that is. Pair
          it with the fact that qheal herald now doesn't pulse any regeneration and protection whatsoever, and
          you might not actually have enough to keep your group alive; still not taking into consideration the
          aforementioned atrocity that is having to keep bubble up and in the group (since the other utility
          skills pulse off of it). You also have absolutely no room for any weapon skills.

As for qdps herald, I know it  is playable but, to be fair, it feels much more clunky to play, doesn't fix the 'spammability issue' (I'm not even sure why or who decided that that's an actual issue but sure), and doesn't change the fact that there are classes which don't have to deal with atrocious micromanaging kitten such as this one and all they need to do to provide quickness/alacrity is mash a few buttons off cooldown, e.g. firebrands or mechanists. But noone cares that they can do that, of course, there are these other classes which absolutely needed to have their entire kit changed to where they need to waste all other utility they had or mash so many buttons it introduces an actual carpal tunnel risk (wasn't this what they were trying to get away from, btw?..) for the purposes of generating this one boon. I'm speaking, of course, also of druid and scourge.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Athef.6879

[RangerAUT.4692]

I think Athef have summed it up very well... it's a huge step backwards for the boonuptime. You are forced to use things that you either don't need or only need in special situations. just to keep ur quickness up

like i said, of course you can still play quickdps, but like you said, it feels rough to play.

and a quickhealherald without protection and the great boonuptimes is now a bad firebrand. no 100% boonuptime helps either.

i hope enough people complain and they make it like before the patch, would be nice if they would listen to the community.

i haven't heard from any herald that the patch has improved anything.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

14 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

People keep saying that, but it really isn't true.  It takes 9 seconds to swap legends, and 9 seconds of 6 upkeep consumes 9 energy.  Per legend swap, there's 41 energy to spare for use for weapon skills and utilities.  I've had limited use with it, but so far the new quickherald plays similarly to the old alacrigade builds.  Qherald is less punishing because it doesn't rely on Charged Mists to make up for their energy costs or Invoking Torment for damage.  I use weapon skills quite liberally under all of the toggles.  

The increase in flexibility comes from permitting more legend combinations.  Previously, Glint was mandatory for quickness.  Now, it is possible to run any combination of legends.  Granted, a boon herald will probably take Glint anyway, but overworld heralds that want self-quickness won't be pidgeonholed into taking Draconic Echo with Glint.  

Having played it extensively in CM level content over the past two days, I can tell you the build is absolutely a step down and does incentivize auto attacks more often than not. As the two posters above me put it, the flexibility for actual skill usage and expression is greatly diminished, I’d say even halved, specifically because the amount of available energy is extremely limited. Non-quickness boon durations are also greatly diminished. Even with the concentration buffs coming this will still be the case. 

perhaps more importantly, managing upkeeps in Glint to ensure you have -6 is obnoxious, especially when you’re using utilities for the actives as well
 

“Overworld heralds that want self quickness won’t be pigeonholed into Glint”

except they will because all of the good boons still come from Glint, including the damage increase from Burst of Strength. Sure, you can take whatever combo you want for quickness now, but you give up a ton of damage by doing so. And not sure why we even care about open world builds anyway when, as always, literally anything works 

 

Edited June 30, 2023 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[hash.8462]

I continue to think that they should roll back Draconic Echo, that way everyone can choose the way he wants to play quick herald.

So if you want to use glint and spam skills you equip Draconic Echo, if you like more to use upkeep and other legends you equip Elevated Compassion, very simple.

[Endaris.1452]

15 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

People keep saying that, but it really isn't true.  It takes 9 seconds to swap legends, and 9 seconds of 6 upkeep consumes 9 energy.  Per legend swap, there's 41 energy to spare for use for weapon skills and utilities. 

The flipside interpretation is that you lose 54 energy per legend to quickness which is more than you're left with.

Even though anet doesn't like it, pressing buttons is usually more fun than not pressing buttons.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

12 hours ago, Athef.6879 said:

Okay, well, let's take that and build on it then. I'll be considering this from the qheal herald perspective, btw, as I feel like that's the one which got actually hit pretty hard.

Jalis - You need to keep Vengeful Hammers running. You take Jalis for IR or elite, which need 30% and 40%
          energy respectively You're left with 11% or 1% = AA spam, and you don't get to use either IR or the
          elite a second time.
Glint - You need to have -6 upkeep running. From what I've seen, that'd be Facets of Nature, Darkness and
          Strength so as to keep Chaos for CC (you've also lost protection btw) and Light for heals. Facet of
          Elements does nothing all that useful, so that's a waste to have open, you're losing Burst of Strength
          from Facet of Strength and you've already by default lost so much general boon generation through
          direct nerfs; but you do have some energy left for weapon skills, enough for Renewing wave and
          Surge of the Mists ig.
Ventari - You need to keep Protective Solace running; which, in of itself, is extremely bad and downright
          undesired in some fights. Since you have to keep that utility running, you can use Natural Harmony
          exactly twice, Purifying Essence once, elite skill once. I don't need to say how huge a nerf that is. Pair
          it with the fact that qheal herald now doesn't pulse any regeneration and protection whatsoever, and
          you might not actually have enough to keep your group alive; still not taking into consideration the
          aforementioned atrocity that is having to keep bubble up and in the group (since the other utility
          skills pulse off of it). You also have absolutely no room for any weapon skills.

As for qdps herald, I know it  is playable but, to be fair, it feels much more clunky to play, doesn't fix the 'spammability issue' (I'm not even sure why or who decided that that's an actual issue but sure), and doesn't change the fact that there are classes which don't have to deal with atrocious micromanaging kitten such as this one and all they need to do to provide quickness/alacrity is mash a few buttons off cooldown, e.g. firebrands or mechanists. But noone cares that they can do that, of course, there are these other classes which absolutely needed to have their entire kit changed to where they need to waste all other utility they had or mash so many buttons it introduces an actual carpal tunnel risk (wasn't this what they were trying to get away from, btw?..) for the purposes of generating this one boon. I'm speaking, of course, also of druid and scourge.

So... like I said, it is similar to alacrigade builds.  To ensure maximum damage, they always need to have their toggles up, and using high energy utility skills like Inspiring Reinforcements always ended up sucking up their energy.  It's been like this since Revenant was released.  Maybe it is because I spent a lot of time on Alacrigade when I was raiding, but the new quickness trait feels like business as usual to me.  I'm just glad I can play it now, because all of the facet spam hurt my hands too much.

Your last paragraph doesn't make any sense.  The only "micromanaging" that Quickherald needs is to flip on their toggles and pay the smallest mind to energy consumption. 

[Ekko.9854]

19 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

People keep saying that, but it really isn't true.  It takes 9 seconds to swap legends, and 9 seconds of 6 upkeep consumes 9 energy.  Per legend swap, there's 41 energy to spare for use for weapon skills and utilities.  I've had limited use with it, but so far the new quickherald plays similarly to the old alacrigade builds.  Qherald is less punishing because it doesn't rely on Charged Mists to make up for their energy costs or Invoking Torment for damage.  I use weapon skills quite liberally under all of the toggles.  

The increase in flexibility comes from permitting more legend combinations.  Previously, Glint was mandatory for quickness.  Now, it is possible to run any combination of legends.  Granted, a boon herald will probably take Glint anyway, but overworld heralds that want self-quickness won't be pidgeonholed into taking Draconic Echo with Glint.  

The changes are really bad, and tbf, it even looks like there was put no thought in at all.  I'll break it down for you like I did on multiple other posts so far because people keep posting stuff like this that makes no sense (no offense). So maybe, just maybe a good dev sees this together and either revert this or at least for once address the obvious real problems instead of creating more and worse versions. 

1) Addressing bad take one: 'The changes improved legend flexibility'.
First of all, Glint is not only mandatory for quickness, but also for all other important boons you want to have from a supportive class. Camping Glint is/was/will always be an issue if literally all useful boons are tied to that stance. So it doesn't matter how much you change it, if the other stances like ventari don't change, Glint will always be the go to legend. 
Therefore, the patch changed literally nothing regarding flexibility because if you don't take Glint you are pretty much just overall worse than before. Who cares about a 2k dps increase if you basically give up all boons except for quickness. So there is still the question of which is the other legend I will take besides Glint, but now you created a lot of other problems which will be discussed below.

2) Addressing bad take two: 'Reactivity didn't change'
For this take, I will take the example of quickheal herald because reactivity is a lot more important for healers in this game. Imagine you are raiding at sloth and you are the designated stab for your subgroup.
Before the patch, you spammed all facets once to get quick uptime. From than on you can perfectly manage quickness by spamming 3-4 facets keeping the ones you need available, aka the elite for cc at sloth. CC phase happens, you press elite for cc, quickness uptime should be around 20sec by now so you can comfortably swap to jalis to provide stab on time, everyone is saved and you continue to give quickness. 
After the patch, you press facets for quick uptime, you energy bar is draining. Energy is almost 0 you are forced to switch. You are now controlled by the energy and have 0 influence on when you will pick which legend efficiently. You now either have to get extremely lucky, give up quickness uptime, or just get feared by slot because you just had to switch of jalis. 
This is just one example but a million more can be given. It is never a good idea to force legends swaps. Also it is rev's identity to control these legends of the mist, but now you are a slave to the uptime and it feels more like they control you. 

3) Take three: Playing herald has just gotten extremely boring in PVE

I won't really say much about this as it is pretty straightforward, no idea how the devs did not see this coming. You run out of energy a lot faster for quickness where previously you always had Glint stance. In Glint the energy was never a problem which allowed you to cast stuff you had to cast which couldn't be done or efficiently achieved in the other legends, aka the ones used as the reactive legend as explained above. Now there is no more reactive legend as both legends are needed for uptime. which means that the class is an auto attacking bot every time when energy gets low, when previously you could always swap back to Glint. Sure spamming stuff could be boring for some, but if you played the class right, you knew what you were doing. Now you have to keep stuff up and auto and that's about it.
Also Quickheal herald is literally unplayable at the moment so it's not even boring, it's just dead 😛 

4) Take four: Forced use of reactive skills, aka the 'dumbing down' of the class, which wasn't that hard already. 

So before the patch you actually had to press buttons for quickness uptime, had more energy to manage stuff and react, but you also had the choice to just auto attack and have full uptime, which it is now. So you could either be really good, or just very average. Now everything tends to lean towards average.
You now don't really have a choice but are forced to use (reactive) upkeep skills (such as bubble or stunbreak) and auto attack, making you press like 3 buttons. This also killed healherald as upkeep with a bubble is just next level trolling imo. This just shows that nobody in the dev team actually played herald before these  changes went live. 

 

So please don't come with herald was a good, or even slightly decent change. Nobody asked for this, quickness herald was one of the classes a lot of people liked to have in their party as it provided nice boons etc. and had barely any complains about (except for the spamming, which also a lot of herald players actually didn't mind at all). Compared to now how they murdered the fun in Qdps herald and absolutely slaughtered quickheal herald which has become unplayable and more troll than actually a build. It was never at the same level as qhfb, but now its probably not even a tier anymore. (which will never be fixed if you keep upkeep btw)

Also apparently mukluk has a good video that kinda explains the whole reactivity thing more in depth and not only for the  herald class which might be helpful to anyone trying to understand how these changes were actually not good. 

Peace out (and hopefully they revert this crap because upkeep is not a good way for quick at all)

Edited July 1, 2023 by Ekko.9854

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

So... like I said, it is similar to alacrigade builds.  To ensure maximum damage, they always need to have their toggles up, and using high energy utility skills like Inspiring Reinforcements always ended up sucking up their energy.  It's been like this since Revenant was released.  Maybe it is because I spent a lot of time on Alacrigade when I was raiding, but the new quickness trait feels like business as usual to me.  I'm just glad I can play it now, because all of the facet spam hurt my hands too much.

Alacrigade spends 20 energy every 15 seconds or so on Orders from Above. In that time, quickherald has spent 90 energy on upkeep. That's a long way from being 'similar'.

[Royal Grand Majesty.9852]

If I'm not mistaken, A-net is trying to make all the classes have greater flexibility in the way they are played while also providing each and every class with the tools to fill each and every role the game demands.

By forcing quickness heralds into a certain type of playstyle seems quite odd to me.

In my opinion they should leave Draconic Echo as it was while also keeping the updated Elevated Compassion.

This way players can choose themselves what style of quickness herald that they prefer playing.

Players who prefer a more APM heavy playstyle can continue to play the DE variation of it, while those who don't can opt in for the EC playstyle.

This will also cater to players who prefer remaining in Glint for the majority of the time, players who love to Legend swap or players who just outright despise Glint and rather use other Legends instead.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Alacrigade spends 20 energy every 15 seconds or so on Orders from Above. In that time, quickherald has spent 90 energy on upkeep. That's a long way from being 'similar'.

It's 54 energy, but it's not Orders From Above that I'm talking about.  To maintain DPS, power alacrigade would switch between Shiro and either Jalis or Kalla ASAP.  Shiro and Jalis would maintain their toggles permanently.  For a time, Kalla would channel Soulcleave, but after that was nerfed it was changed to using Icerazor twice per legend swap.  Celestial alacrigade is similar, maintaining Embrace The Darkness while in Mallyx. 

This was all done while using Orders From Above off cooldown, as well as as many weapon skills and clutch utilities as possible depending on circumstance.  Alacrigade leaned heavily on Charged Mists, because the extra energy was the only way to do all of this stuff, and even then the extra energy was almost completely blown on using Orders.  If the window for Charged Mists was missed (sub-second timing), then you could do little more than auto attack until the next legend swap.

I keep seeing complaints about inflexibility, but this is the exact same playstyle that PVE Rev has maintained since its release.  If I'm running any DPS build or alacrity, I'm still playing the exact same way: maintain the toggles for maximum DPS and work all weapon skills and utilities under that restriction.  This wasn't a problem, until this June update where suddenly rev is insufferably constrained.  The irony of all this is that Anet fixed for Quickherald the exact same problem that they just gave AlacDruid and AlacScourge, which was requiring mashing skills regardless of their contextual appropriateness to maintain a boon.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

 

6 hours ago, Ekko.9854 said:

The changes are really bad, and tbf, it even looks like there was put no thought in at all.  I'll break it down for you like I did on multiple other posts so far because people keep posting stuff like this that makes no sense (no offense). So maybe, just maybe a good dev sees this together and either revert this or at least for once address the obvious real problems instead of creating more and worse versions. 

No.  I'm going to bet that your here to pick a fight..  I'll show it, too.  

6 hours ago, Ekko.9854 said:

1) Addressing bad take one: 'The changes improved legend flexibility'.
First of all, Glint is not only mandatory for quickness, but also for all other important boons you want to have from a supportive class. Camping Glint is/was/will always be an issue if literally all useful boons are tied to that stance. So it doesn't matter how much you change it, if the other stances like ventari don't change, Glint will always be the go to legend. 
Therefore, the patch changed literally nothing regarding flexibility because if you don't take Glint you are pretty much just overall worse than before. Who cares about a 2k dps increase if you basically give up all boons except for quickness. So there is still the question of which is the other legend I will take besides Glint, but now you created a lot of other problems which will be discussed below.

This entire paragraph doesn't make sense in light of what you're quoting:

23 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

The increase in flexibility comes from permitting more legend combinations.  Previously, Glint was mandatory for quickness.  Now, it is possible to run any combination of legends.  Granted, a boon herald will probably take Glint anyway, but overworld heralds that want self-quickness won't be pidgeonholed into taking Draconic Echo with Glint.  

You spent spent two paragraphs presuming to lecture me on something I've already said in a half a sentence, refuse to actually address the context that I gave in the second half of that sentence, and by your own admission say that a Glintless build running Elevated Compassion will do more damage.  

6 hours ago, Ekko.9854 said:

2) Addressing bad take two: 'Reactivity didn't change'
For this take, I will take the example of quickheal herald because reactivity is a lot more important for healers in this game. Imagine you are raiding at sloth and you are the designated stab for your subgroup.

You're putting words in my mouth.  Never have I said that the reactivity for heal builds hasn't changed.  In fact, I've said the opposite in previous threads.  My post was exclusively talking about the boon herald builds, and not the healers.  Now, I've only been skimming these forums for a bit, but I haven't seen a single person say that the heal herald builds were unchanged by this update.

6 hours ago, Ekko.9854 said:

Before the patch, you spammed all facets once to get quick uptime. From than on you can perfectly manage quickness by spamming 3-4 facets keeping the ones you need available, aka the elite for cc at sloth. CC phase happens, you press elite for cc, quickness uptime should be around 20sec by now so you can comfortably swap to jalis to provide stab on time, everyone is saved and you continue to give quickness. 
After the patch, you press facets for quick uptime, you energy bar is draining. Energy is almost 0 you are forced to switch. You are now controlled by the energy and have 0 influence on when you will pick which legend efficiently. You now either have to get extremely lucky, give up quickness uptime, or just get feared by slot because you just had to switch of jalis. 
This is just one example but a million more can be given. It is never a good idea to force legends swaps. Also it is rev's identity to control these legends of the mist, but now you are a slave to the uptime and it feels more like they control you. 

One of the things I learned very quickly while fighting Slothasor is to never use Inspiring Reinforcements.  The Evolved Slublings corrupt stability into fear, ironically having the opposite effect than what is intended.  I learned not to do this after getting a few teammates killed from using IR.  Also, your counter-example doesn't make much sense, since the previous Draconic Echo tactics kept Nature and Chaos toggled on... consuming 6 energy per second. 

Finally, the notion of having zero influence when to switch legends is a skill issue.  Or a lie.  One of those two.  Something else I've learned from pugging raids and fractals with nearly every rev build is how to save energy.  This was done mostly to manage Charged MIsts, but also it had to deal with reserve CC or other particular mechanics.  Like every other rev build, if there's some important role you need to fulfill coming up, but your legend swaps don't align with when that would be convenient, you just cool it on the weapon/utility skills for a few seconds to make it convenient.  This isn't rocket science.  Energy management should come as second nature to experienced rev players, and it is far easier to handle on builds that aren't dependent on Charged Mists.

Was this all supposed to be on Heal Herald?  Don't they run Ventari for... heals?  Your lead in to these paragraphs doesn't make sense, your particular example doesn't work, you've neglected that Draconic Echo Herald kept high upkeeps anyway, and your assertion of rigid legend locking isn't right, either.

6 hours ago, Ekko.9854 said:

3) Take three: Playing herald has just gotten extremely boring in PVE

I won't really say much about this as it is pretty straightforward, no idea how the devs did not see this coming. You run out of energy a lot faster for quickness where previously you always had Glint stance. In Glint the energy was never a problem which allowed you to cast stuff you had to cast which couldn't be done or efficiently achieved in the other legends, aka the ones used as the reactive legend as explained above. Now there is no more reactive legend as both legends are needed for uptime. which means that the class is an auto attacking bot every time when energy gets low, when previously you could always swap back to Glint. Sure spamming stuff could be boring for some, but if you played the class right, you knew what you were doing. Now you have to keep stuff up and auto and that's about it.
Also Quickheal herald is literally unplayable at the moment so it's not even boring, it's just dead 😛 

The simplicity is what I like about this change.  As I said to some else above, the new quickness build plays very similarly to... just about every other build that rev has going for it.  The implicit claim here is that the previous rev builds sans Draconic Echo Quickherald are all insufferably boring, which is just hyperbole.  Likewise, the assertion that Herald is now an auto attack bot is just hyperbole.

6 hours ago, Ekko.9854 said:

4) Take four: Forced use of reactive skills, aka the 'dumbing down' of the class, which wasn't that hard already. 

So before the patch you actually had to press buttons for quickness uptime, had more energy to manage stuff and react, but you also had the choice to just auto attack and have full uptime, which it is now. So you could either be really good, or just very average. Now everything tends to lean towards average.
You now don't really have a choice but are forced to use (reactive) upkeep skills (such as bubble or stunbreak) and auto attack, making you press like 3 buttons. This also killed healherald as upkeep with a bubble is just next level trolling imo. This just shows that nobody in the dev team actually played herald before these  changes went live. 

You seem to be changing between Quickherald and Heal Herald between as you write sentences.  It bears mentioning that the only way that Ventari locks the player into auto attacks is if they need to use Natural Harmony in order to heal their teammates.  Protective Solace by itself isn't energy hungry enough to reduce players into auto-bots.

A lot of what I've said before applies here, but there is something that also bears mentioning regarding these builds: boon duration.  Sitting in full Harriers with Monk Runes in Salvation/Invocation/Herald, I'm resting at 92.8% boon duration, no concentration sigil required.  But, lets throw that sigil on there and hit 100% boon duration.  By switching on Chaos, Strength, and Darkness until I run out of energy with weapon skills,  I'm able to build up enough quickness (10-11 seconds, roughly) to swap to ventari and never need to use the bubble once to keep permanent quickness, let alone protection and fury.  This is while mashing sword skills, though.  For a safe strat, you could forgo the weapon skills at the beginning of the fight and switch on Light to save enough time to get a healthy bulwark of quickness (18 seconds or so when I tried it), and never have to worry about keeping up a bubble or restraining weapon skills again.  Of course, popping up the bubble will help to proc additional quickness if you want.  Even swapping between the two legends off cooldown, I'm able to maintain permanent fury, protection, and quickness, and also permanent regeneration if I cool it at the beginning of the fight and switch on Light.

One person tells me there's too much micromanaging from this update, another person tells me there isn't enough.  Apparently it is arbitrary whether managing energy or managing cooldowns is more braindead than the other.  I can't vouch for how much testing the devs have done regarding this update, but chances are if they did test HealHerald, they did it in something like Harriers and Minstrels... with boon duration.  So I've got to ask: what build, exactly, are you guys using for QuickHerald and HealHerald that are keeping you so strapped for boons to cause such lamentations?  Because as I've tested it, aside from the tight timing at the start of the fight the only legend that needs to maintain its upkeeps to get permanent boons is Glint.  It's going to get easier in July, too, after that update fixes the disjointed proccing between the facets and the traits.

6 hours ago, Ekko.9854 said:

So please don't come with herald was a good, or even slightly decent change. Nobody asked for this, quickness herald was one of the classes a lot of people liked to have in their party as it provided nice boons etc. and had barely any complains about (except for the spamming, which also a lot of herald players actually didn't mind at all). Compared to now how they murdered the fun in Qdps herald and absolutely slaughtered quickheal herald which has become unplayable and more troll than actually a build. It was never at the same level as qhfb, but now its probably not even a tier anymore. (which will never be fixed if you keep upkeep btw)

Also apparently mukluk has a good video that kinda explains the whole reactivity thing more in depth and not only for the  herald class which might be helpful to anyone trying to understand how these changes were actually not good. 

Peace out (and hopefully they revert this crap because upkeep is not a good way for quick at all)

I didn't ask for it, but I'm glad it happened.  I hated the previous quickness herald, because it involved floating my hands across the keyboard to mash 4-5 skills two to three times as quickly as human possible every 12 seconds to maintain just barely enough quickness to function.  It hurt my hands.  But that's all aside from the point.  To give a quick recap, about the only valid point you have is that the upkeep skills make legend swapping for utilities less reactive, but not to the degree that you say it constrains you.  Everything else is adversarial, exaggerated, or just outright counterfactual.  

[Athef.6879]

11 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Your last paragraph doesn't make any sense.  The only "micromanaging" that Quickherald needs is to flip on their toggles and pay the smallest mind to energy consumption. 

You're still looking at this from the perspective of providing quickness and quickness only.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Athef.6879

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

It's 54 energy,

It's 6 energy per second. 54 energy was cited as the minimum energy that has to go into quickness production per legend, but alacrigade doesn't use Orders from Above on every weaponswap. If you take that into account, in the time that the alacrigade has spent 20 energy upkeeping alacrity, the quickherald needs to spend 90 energy upkeeping quickness.

Now you could say that the alacrigade is going to want to use those upkeep skills anyway for max DPS (and did, since that was the TLDR of the rest of your post). However, the distinction is that the alacrigade doesn't have to. If some other use of energy is more valuable to the team than a little extra damage - stability from the Jalis road, for instance - alacrigade could do that without their application dropping. Old quickherald could as well - put all your facets on 10+ second cooldowns, switch, lay down two roads, switch back. New quickherald can't, because quickness is tied directly to those upkeep skills. Turn off your upkeep to conserve energy for another skill, and your application drops. Want to consume a facet, you'd better have something else on standby to replace those pips, and engage it at the same time you use the original facet, or you're either spending even more energy or losing application. Maybe you have a buffer and can afford that. Maybe someone just came back from having to do a mechanic and for that period of time they just miss out.

It seems that you're arguing that the change is good because you don't like having to press buttons, but ArenaNet's stated goal was to allow builds to be more flexible due to not having to dedicate as many resources to maintaining the boon, and in this case they've achieved the opposite.

Quickherald was fun while it lasted, but I've already switched back to other quickness builds. Maybe I'll use the new version in open world purely as a "if I happen to have 6 pips of upkeep anyway, cool" thing. But being a slave to an upkeep threshold is not a playstyle that appeals to me.

On the plus side, I don't need to keep switching between healing and handkiting gear any more. Although my handkiting set might be undermined in two months...

[Ekko.9854]

5 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

 

No.  I'm going to bet that your here to pick a fight..  I'll show it, too.  

This entire paragraph doesn't make sense in light of what you're quoting:

You spent spent two paragraphs presuming to lecture me on something I've already said in a half a sentence, refuse to actually address the context that I gave in the second half of that sentence, and by your own admission say that a Glintless build running Elevated Compassion will do more damage.  

You're putting words in my mouth.  Never have I said that the reactivity for heal builds hasn't changed.  In fact, I've said the opposite in previous threads.  My post was exclusively talking about the boon herald builds, and not the healers.  Now, I've only been skimming these forums for a bit, but I haven't seen a single person say that the heal herald builds were unchanged by this update.

One of the things I learned very quickly while fighting Slothasor is to never use Inspiring Reinforcements.  The Evolved Slublings corrupt stability into fear, ironically having the opposite effect than what is intended.  I learned not to do this after getting a few teammates killed from using IR.  Also, your counter-example doesn't make much sense, since the previous Draconic Echo tactics kept Nature and Chaos toggled on... consuming 6 energy per second. 

Finally, the notion of having zero influence when to switch legends is a skill issue.  Or a lie.  One of those two.  Something else I've learned from pugging raids and fractals with nearly every rev build is how to save energy.  This was done mostly to manage Charged MIsts, but also it had to deal with reserve CC or other particular mechanics.  Like every other rev build, if there's some important role you need to fulfill coming up, but your legend swaps don't align with when that would be convenient, you just cool it on the weapon/utility skills for a few seconds to make it convenient.  This isn't rocket science.  Energy management should come as second nature to experienced rev players, and it is far easier to handle on builds that aren't dependent on Charged Mists.

Was this all supposed to be on Heal Herald?  Don't they run Ventari for... heals?  Your lead in to these paragraphs doesn't make sense, your particular example doesn't work, you've neglected that Draconic Echo Herald kept high upkeeps anyway, and your assertion of rigid legend locking isn't right, either.

The simplicity is what I like about this change.  As I said to some else above, the new quickness build plays very similarly to... just about every other build that rev has going for it.  The implicit claim here is that the previous rev builds sans Draconic Echo Quickherald are all insufferably boring, which is just hyperbole.  Likewise, the assertion that Herald is now an auto attack bot is just hyperbole.

You seem to be changing between Quickherald and Heal Herald between as you write sentences.  It bears mentioning that the only way that Ventari locks the player into auto attacks is if they need to use Natural Harmony in order to heal their teammates.  Protective Solace by itself isn't energy hungry enough to reduce players into auto-bots.

A lot of what I've said before applies here, but there is something that also bears mentioning regarding these builds: boon duration.  Sitting in full Harriers with Monk Runes in Salvation/Invocation/Herald, I'm resting at 92.8% boon duration, no concentration sigil required.  But, lets throw that sigil on there and hit 100% boon duration.  By switching on Chaos, Strength, and Darkness until I run out of energy with weapon skills,  I'm able to build up enough quickness (10-11 seconds, roughly) to swap to ventari and never need to use the bubble once to keep permanent quickness, let alone protection and fury.  This is while mashing sword skills, though.  For a safe strat, you could forgo the weapon skills at the beginning of the fight and switch on Light to save enough time to get a healthy bulwark of quickness (18 seconds or so when I tried it), and never have to worry about keeping up a bubble or restraining weapon skills again.  Of course, popping up the bubble will help to proc additional quickness if you want.  Even swapping between the two legends off cooldown, I'm able to maintain permanent fury, protection, and quickness, and also permanent regeneration if I cool it at the beginning of the fight and switch on Light.

One person tells me there's too much micromanaging from this update, another person tells me there isn't enough.  Apparently it is arbitrary whether managing energy or managing cooldowns is more braindead than the other.  I can't vouch for how much testing the devs have done regarding this update, but chances are if they did test HealHerald, they did it in something like Harriers and Minstrels... with boon duration.  So I've got to ask: what build, exactly, are you guys using for QuickHerald and HealHerald that are keeping you so strapped for boons to cause such lamentations?  Because as I've tested it, aside from the tight timing at the start of the fight the only legend that needs to maintain its upkeeps to get permanent boons is Glint.  It's going to get easier in July, too, after that update fixes the disjointed proccing between the facets and the traits.

I didn't ask for it, but I'm glad it happened.  I hated the previous quickness herald, because it involved floating my hands across the keyboard to mash 4-5 skills two to three times as quickly as human possible every 12 seconds to maintain just barely enough quickness to function.  It hurt my hands.  But that's all aside from the point.  To give a quick recap, about the only valid point you have is that the upkeep skills make legend swapping for utilities less reactive, but not to the degree that you say it constrains you.  Everything else is adversarial, exaggerated, or just outright counterfactual.  

Ok so we agree that heal herald is abysmal now as it is very clunky atm so I won't go into that anymore specifically. Also if you just assume healherald run stuff, I assume you don't play it... And no healheralds ran glint and whatever was needed as reactive legend. You run full harrier if you don't need to tank stuff so you have max quickness and can be as reactive as possible. 

Also I did indeed write about QDPS and healherald at the same time because they have the same problem, which I kinda clearly stated. And I stay with that take that if you don't run glint you are either trolling or just selfish because glint gives way too much useful boons, so no matter how they change it, if the boons stay at glint there is no real other option. 

For the sloth example, I can give you a million other examples. I don't need to be explained about how mechanics work, its about making the class user-friendly and fun. Now it's safe to say it's not that fun, as a lot of people have already made remarks on the forums about being auto attack bots. You talk about being an insanely good player with perfect energy management, but a lot of people don't have the time for that and just want to play their class to a decent extent. 

Another example of how bad the forced legend switching (and yeah it is forced no matter how you try to explain it, as you want quickness uptime there will be a point you run out and need to switch if you are not mr perfect) is the Vale guardian and greens mechanic. You ignore greens, but if you just switched of ventari, people will die because you can't provide the same burstheal in other legends. 

Also your notion of saving energy doesn't match with the new quickness builds as these consume energy so there will always be a point were you are either running low on energy or you are forced into a swap. And playing to delay these swaps to make the timing work is indeed something a good herald can do, but this is very clunky and can't be an intension. 

Furthermore, If your hands were hurting from spamming all the facets you could just get more concentration in your gear? You don't have to be optimal, that is for the target golem and to post on snowcrows. A lot of people just take those builds and put a piece or two of extra diviners on it to make it more manageable. As I said, first rotation you had to indeed spam all facets, second time you can easily manage the upkeep with just 3 or 4. And I do get that people find it a lot more easier now, but than you also have to acknowledge that it's more boring for a lot of players as that goes hand in hand with not needing to press any buttons anymore, complemented with increased energy drain which makes you an auto attack bot. 

Also your 'counterfactual' , lol. Pretty sure most of what I say is grounded in my experience of running both builds everyday in all content of the game. While you haven't even touched healherald? 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Ekko.9854

[RangerAUT.4692]

could you please stop with the alacrev comparisons? this post is about the quicknessherald. if you are unhappy with the alacrev being so much harder to play than the quickherald was, then just play alacmech (more alac uptime easy to play). But stop complaining that the energy management is so hard and don't compare apples with pears.

As you can see, most of the community doesn't agree with the changes. And want the devs to notice.

We complain that one of our favourite classes has been patched into an AFK alacmech bot that only casts a brainafk utility and does autoattacks.

Herald was a very good class, now that he is only scuffed to play, you see almost no Heralds in raids or strikes. The loss of felxible switching is also very noticeable in OLC CM, for example. There are no more Qheralds to ignite Rite of the Great Dwarf, which was a great support for many groups. Now I have already experienced many wipes because it is no longer possible to switch like that.

[Ekko.9854]

36 minutes ago, RangerAUT.4692 said:

could you please stop with the alacrev comparisons? this post is about the quicknessherald. if you are unhappy with the alacrev being so much harder to play than the quickherald was, then just play alacmech (more alac uptime easy to play). But stop complaining that the energy management is so hard and don't compare apples with pears.

As you can see, most of the community doesn't agree with the changes. And want the devs to notice.

We complain that one of our favourite classes has been patched into an AFK alacmech bot that only casts a brainafk utility and does autoattacks.

Herald was a very good class, now that he is only scuffed to play, you see almost no Heralds in raids or strikes. The loss of felxible switching is also very noticeable in OLC CM, for example. There are no more Qheralds to ignite Rite of the Great Dwarf, which was a great support for many groups. Now I have already experienced many wipes because it is no longer possible to switch like that.

True that, I stopped playing herald completely. 

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

Is there a way where instead of 3s of quickness on -6 pips that it instead becomes 1s of quickness for every -2 pips being spent. Possibly allowing for a heavier stack in glint by stacking up to -10 before dumping all the facets or even just allowing the -2 nature in the other swap to carry over until you can make it back to glint. Would make it easier to play and possibly open up better active energy management in the swaps outside of glint. The biggest issue I see is the invisible 3s refresh counter going on in the background of glint that the trait is tied to and it snap-shotting your current drain. That needs to be changed.

Edited July 1, 2023 by UncreativeGreen.2019

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

18 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

It's 6 energy per second. 54 energy was cited as the minimum energy that has to go into quickness production per legend, but alacrigade doesn't use Orders from Above on every weaponswap. If you take that into account, in the time that the alacrigade has spent 20 energy upkeeping alacrity, the quickherald needs to spend 90 energy upkeeping quickness.

Now you could say that the alacrigade is going to want to use those upkeep skills anyway for max DPS (and did, since that was the TLDR of the rest of your post). However, the distinction is that the alacrigade doesn't have to. If some other use of energy is more valuable to the team than a little extra damage - stability from the Jalis road, for instance - alacrigade could do that without their application dropping. Old quickherald could as well - put all your facets on 10+ second cooldowns, switch, lay down two roads, switch back. New quickherald can't, because quickness is tied directly to those upkeep skills. Turn off your upkeep to conserve energy for another skill, and your application drops. Want to consume a facet, you'd better have something else on standby to replace those pips, and engage it at the same time you use the original facet, or you're either spending even more energy or losing application. Maybe you have a buffer and can afford that. Maybe someone just came back from having to do a mechanic and for that period of time they just miss out.

It seems that you're arguing that the change is good because you don't like having to press buttons, but ArenaNet's stated goal was to allow builds to be more flexible due to not having to dedicate as many resources to maintaining the boon, and in this case they've achieved the opposite.

Quickherald was fun while it lasted, but I've already switched back to other quickness builds. Maybe I'll use the new version in open world purely as a "if I happen to have 6 pips of upkeep anyway, cool" thing. But being a slave to an upkeep threshold is not a playstyle that appeals to me.

On the plus side, I don't need to keep switching between healing and handkiting gear any more. Although my handkiting set might be undermined in two months...

If your entire premise for dismissing me is that Alacrigade didn't have to use their toggles to deal damage, then consider that similar can be said for the new Quickherald.  But, instead of not using toggles to use abilities, it would just not use weapon skills (briefly) to maintain its toggles.  Your shifting the same burden of energy allocation from place to place.  Look, my analysis was done under the assumption that all builds were attempting maximum competency.  That is, inflicting as much damage as possible while maintaining the particular roles and utilities.  If we're dropping the damage component of those premises, then it doesn't make sense to arbitrarily declare one constrained and the other not for dealing with the same energy costs by dropping damage in slightly different ways.  

Also, I don't know if you saw my reply below that one, but when I tested Diviner and Harrier Herald I found that you only needed to keep the toggles up in Glint to maintain 100% uptime on boons.  I also tested to see what happened of you forgo weapon skills for the first energy bar only, and it built up 18 seconds by the time energy ran out.  The only time you'll be a complete slave to the toggles is if you're running no boon duration.  Even then, after the July update increases the amount of quickness granted by 25%, you'll have 2.25 seconds of extra quickness to spare per legend swap.  In all irony, this is very similar to how condi renegade plays, where it only keeps the toggle up in Mallyx.  

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

18 hours ago, Athef.6879 said:

You're still looking at this from the perspective of providing quickness and quickness only.

... So I take it that you haven't seen just about anything else said in this thread?  It's O.K.  I'll go ahead and quote some relevant points:

 

On 6/29/2023 at 10:04 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I've had limited use with it, but so far the new quickherald plays similarly to the old alacrigade builds.  Qherald is less punishing because it doesn't rely on Charged Mists to make up for their energy costs or Invoking Torment for damage.  I use weapon skills quite liberally under all of the toggles.  

 

On 6/30/2023 at 2:41 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

So... like I said, it is similar to alacrigade builds.  To ensure maximum damage, they always need to have their toggles up, and using high energy utility skills like Inspiring Reinforcements always ended up sucking up their energy.  It's been like this since Revenant was released.

 

21 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

t's 54 energy, but it's not Orders From Above that I'm talking about.  To maintain DPS, power alacrigade would switch between Shiro and either Jalis or Kalla ASAP.  Shiro and Jalis would maintain their toggles permanently.  For a time, Kalla would channel Soulcleave, but after that was nerfed it was changed to using Icerazor twice per legend swap.  Celestial alacrigade is similar, maintaining Embrace The Darkness while in Mallyx. 

This was all done while using Orders From Above off cooldown, as well as as many weapon skills and clutch utilities as possible depending on circumstance.  Alacrigade leaned heavily on Charged Mists, because the extra energy was the only way to do all of this stuff, and even then the extra energy was almost completely blown on using Orders.  If the window for Charged Mists was missed (sub-second timing), then you could do little more than auto attack until the next legend swap.

 

21 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Finally, the notion of having zero influence when to switch legends is a skill issue.  Or a lie.  One of those two.  Something else I've learned from pugging raids and fractals with nearly every rev build is how to save energy.  This was done mostly to manage Charged MIsts, but also it had to deal with reserve CC or other particular mechanics.  Like every other rev build, if there's some important role you need to fulfill coming up, but your legend swaps don't align with when that would be convenient, you just cool it on the weapon/utility skills for a few seconds to make it convenient.  This isn't rocket science.  Energy management should come as second nature to experienced rev players, and it is far easier to handle on builds that aren't dependent on Charged Mists.

 

21 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

A lot of what I've said before applies here, but there is something that also bears mentioning regarding these builds: boon duration.  Sitting in full Harriers with Monk Runes in Salvation/Invocation/Herald, I'm resting at 92.8% boon duration, no concentration sigil required.  But, lets throw that sigil on there and hit 100% boon duration.  By switching on Chaos, Strength, and Darkness until I run out of energy with weapon skills,  I'm able to build up enough quickness (10-11 seconds, roughly) to swap to ventari and never need to use the bubble once to keep permanent quickness, let alone protection and fury.  This is while mashing sword skills, though.  For a safe strat, you could forgo the weapon skills at the beginning of the fight and switch on Light to save enough time to get a healthy bulwark of quickness (18 seconds or so when I tried it), and never have to worry about keeping up a bubble or restraining weapon skills again.  Of course, popping up the bubble will help to proc additional quickness if you want.  Even swapping between the two legends off cooldown, I'm able to maintain permanent fury, protection, and quickness, and also permanent regeneration if I cool it at the beginning of the fight and switch on Light.

 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

16 hours ago, RangerAUT.4692 said:

could you please stop with the alacrev comparisons? this post is about the quicknessherald. if you are unhappy with the alacrev being so much harder to play than the quickherald was, then just play alacmech (more alac uptime easy to play). But stop complaining that the energy management is so hard and don't compare apples with pears.

As you can see, most of the community doesn't agree with the changes. And want the devs to notice.

We complain that one of our favourite classes has been patched into an AFK alacmech bot that only casts a brainafk utility and does autoattacks.

Herald was a very good class, now that he is only scuffed to play, you see almost no Heralds in raids or strikes. The loss of felxible switching is also very noticeable in OLC CM, for example. There are no more Qheralds to ignite Rite of the Great Dwarf, which was a great support for many groups. Now I have already experienced many wipes because it is no longer possible to switch like that.

You didn't @ me but I'm assuming that you're responding to me in this.  The problem with all of these complaints is that they're quite blatantly untrue, and it doesn't matter how many people complain to the devs about something the devs know is false.  Revs are still using sword skills for damage, staff for utility and CC, Glint Facets for their active abilities, and an alternate legend for either damage (Shiro) or further utility (Jalis, Ventari).  The devs know this, so they're going to dismiss all of these complaints outright, saying to themselves that the community will learn.

I keep making comparisons to alacgridae because it shows exactly how inconsistent these complaints are.  If your whole argument is "don't do it" I'm going to respond with "No, I'm going to keep doing it."  

[Endaris.1452]

12 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Look, my analysis was done under the assumption that all builds were attempting maximum competency.

The problem here is that maximum competency not always equals maximum DPS.

As others mentioned, there may instances where road / dwarf / CC are important and where using these skills as energy excess in favor of your upkeep skill would be a net gain for the squad. Certainly you did extend your stay in Kalla if you knew a break bar was coming up so you could throw Darkrazor at it and cancelled Scorchrazor early to have enough energy if you had to cast other skills on top (like your heal and staff 5 on KC breakbar with goop for instance).

One issue with requiring 6 upkeep is that your energy gain becomes default negative whereas previously on qherald and also on alacrigade you would have been able to camp a legend forever without dropping your key boon. This would be relevant on stuff like Adina where you want Ventari for projectile hate but technically you really don't want to switch to Ventari on mainphase because it offers no damage and you want to make sure that the legend is rate for the phase start.

Sure, many of these "problems" are easy to solve by just throwing more boon duration at it but as you assume maximum competency, I'm going to assume maximum efficiency because otherwise qHerald will just be a straight downgrade compared to other quickness providers that don't have a clunky feeling mechanic. To me this entire upkeep story is just inherently unfun and I never saw a problem with quickness being tied to glint as a Herald feature rather than a Revenant feature.